QnA with Ajahn Dtun: Body Contemplation and what Ajahn Chah Actually Taught

QnA with Ajahn Dtun: Body Contemplation and what Ajahn Chah Actually Taught

Q: How essential is body contemplation? Didn’t the Venerable Ajahn Chah teach ‘letting go’? 

Ajahn Dtun: 

It is essential to investigate the body to see the mind clearly. Sometimes people take Luang Por Chah’s teachings from the end of the path and forget about the instructions for the beginning. 

If one has not passed beyond all attachment to the body, it is impossible to clearly investigate the mind. 

The investigation of citta and dhamma satipatthānas (the four foundations of mindfulness: the body, feelings, mind and dhammas) is the path of practice for anāgāmis. Before that, they can be investigated, but only superficially. 

Sometimes you hear people say, ‘Kilesas are in the mind, not in the body, so it is the mind that should be contemplated.’ But it is only by passing beyond attachment to the body that the other khandhas (the five physical and mental components of personality: body, feeling, memory, thinking and consciousness) become clear. 

Without investigating the body as elements, as asubha, as thirty two parts, one will not be able to realize sotāpanna. Even those with great pāramī, such as Luang Por Tate and Luang Ta Mahā Boowa, had to go through the body to realize the path. 

It is important to note that in the higher ordination ceremony to become a Buddhist monk, the preceptor must instruct the candidate for ordination on the five principal objects of meditation: hair, body hair, nails, teeth and skin. To not give this instruction invalidates the whole ordination. 

And why? Because the Lord Buddha knew that by not instructing a candidate on such an essential topic would be the cause for those persons Holy-Life to be unfruitful, or more precisely, they will not realize the noble paths to awakening, their fruitions, nor Nibbāna.

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Q: How deep can one go with the practice of being mindful in daily life? 

Ajahn Dtun: 

Being continuously aware of mental objects throughout the day is an essential support for one’s meditation practice, but it is samādhi that gives sati (mindfulness) the strength to be firmly established. If we are mindful throughout the day, letting go of mental objects as they arise, then when we sit in meditation, the mind becomes deeply peaceful more easily. 

However, this kind of awareness and letting go is like trimming the branches of a tree: no matter how much you trim them, they keep growing again. To uproot the tree altogether, you have to uproot the attachment and identification with the body as ‘me’ or ‘mine’. 

I experimented with simply watching mental objects for a while: one day attraction to sense objects would arise and I would focus my awareness upon it, causing the delight to cease. But the next day, there would be delight with other objects. There is no end to it. 

However, with body contemplation, it comes to an end.

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From This is the Path by Ajahn Dtun pp12-13

https://www.dhammatalks.net/Books13/Ajahn-Dtun_This-is-the-Path.pdf